SISTERS OF THE SPRUCE is now in bookstores

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"One of the most original and  gripping novels I've read in a long time. Set in the years after the Great War, Sisters of the Spruce pitches the reader into the harsh life of a logging camp, where Japanese-Canadian teenager Khya Terada risks the dangers of the BC wilderness and the even greater dangers of civilized society to seek justice for her sister and a new life for her friend Daisy. Leslie Shimotakahara has created an unforgettable heroine." 

Janie Chang, Globe and Mail bestselling author of The Porcelain Moon and The Library of Legends 

"Sisters of the Spruce is a captivating tale of Asian female bonds forged in the wilds of British Columbia's Haida Gwaii. Drawing on family lore as well as historical research, Shimotakahara has channelled her grandmother's spirit to create a fearless and plucky heroine."

Lynne Kutsukake, author of The Translation of Love

"Shimotakahara brings to vivid life a largely forgotten chapter in Canadian history, when Chinese, Japanese and Indigenous peoples joined with White settlers to build the wooden warplanes that helped win the First World War."

Ted Goossen, editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories and co-editor of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan

"[A] poignant story of friendship and love, family loyalty and the strength of the human spirit."  Historical Novel Society

"Shimotakahara's storytelling prowess shines brightly in this evocative tale of adventure, survival, and the enduring bonds of kinship."  Cha: An Asian Literary Journal

"Shimotakahara offers evocative descriptions of the landscape.... [S]he brings the buried ruins of the era to life."  Literary Review of Canada

Leslie Shimotakahara's third novel, Sisters of the Spruce, is on Quill & Quire's "2024 Spring Preview: Fiction" and has been praised by the Literary Review of Canada for "bring[ing] the buried ruins of the era to life," with respect to the Japanese-Canadian immigrant experience in Haida Gwaii. Her memoir, The Reading List, won the Canada-Japan Literary Prize and has been recently translated into Japanese, and her fiction has been shortlisted for the KM Hunter Artist Award. She has written two other critically acclaimed novels, After the Bloom and Red Oblivion. 

After the Bloom received a starred review from Booklist and is Bustle’s number one choice in “50 Books To Read With Your Book Club,” while Kirkus Reviews commended Red Oblivion for displaying “virtuosity in this subtle deconstruction of one family’s tainted origins.” Her writing has appeared in the National Post, World Literature Today, and Changing the Face of Canadian Literature, among other anthologies and periodicals. She completed a PhD in English at Brown University, after which she returned to her hometown of Toronto, where she now resides with her husband.